443 Single Drive vs. Duel Drive

[JMiles]

I went to look at a John Deere 443 corn head the other day. It was only a single drive on the right side? Our local John Deere rep told us that is the newer models. Could anyone please shed some light on this fact. What was the benefit of a single drive?

 

[JMS/.MN]

Don"t know about the drive issue, but I believe the early 443 had a plain yellow decal, while later ones had the numbers outlined in black. Were later 443s equipped with oil bath gearboxes, instead of dry? Mike A would know.

 

[Mike Aylward]

This must be a later 443. They did come with a single drive which will work just fine. Keep in mind that on 8-row (or larger) heads they were running four gear boxes with one shaft. The head is probably a low-tin model. Be aware that not all low-tin corn heads are "oil drive". When the 20 series combines came out for 1979 the low-tin heads were introduced with them but still had the dry chain drive. In 1981 there were a number of improvements made to the heads including the "oil drive" on the side. The gathering chain idler sprockets were different, longer deck plates, and other things were included in this update. Also, being the heads are numbered with the same system as the combines, the first "dry drive" heads would start at serial number 350,000 and the updates for the "oil drive" heads were two years later at approximately 450,000. For several years combines and corn heads both were lumped in a 50,000 group of numbers. In other words, each year started 50,000 numbers larger. Mike